Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (ICCI) leading a delegation held a meeting with Amir Ali Ahmed, Chief Commissioner ICT and Chairman CDA in his office and discussed the problems being faced by the restaurants due to the ban on indoor dining. He said that UAE and other countries were allowing indoor dining in restaurants by maintaining sufficient gaps between tables with glass/acrylic sheets partition to ensure social distancing and this arrangement should also be allowed in the federal capital as ban on indoor dining in restaurants was causing great business loss to this sector. Hamza Shafqaat Deputy Commissioner Islamabad, Magistrate ICT and Director DMA were also present in the meeting. Khurram Khan President Islamabad Restaurants Association, Muhammad Ejaz Abbasi former President ICCI, Attique Khattak and others were in the delegation.
Sardar Yasir Ilyas Khan was of the view that hundreds of people were daily travelling in commercial flights and were given regular meals in flights. He said that if meals could be served in a closed environment of flights, there was no justification to ban indoor dining with social distancing in restaurants. He said that due to lockdowns in the past, restaurants, wedding halls and marquees remained closed for a long period due to which these businesses have already suffered huge losses. He said that allowing them indoor dining and indoor functions with SOPs would help them in recovering businesses losses and keeping workers employed. Therefore, he urged that the government should realize genuine problems of restaurants/wedding halls and allow them routine business activities with SOPs.
Khurram Khan, President Islamabad Restaurants Association said that thousands of workers were employed in restaurants, wedding halls and marquees, but putting a ban on indoor dining and indoor functions would render hundreds of workers jobless due to shrinkage in business activities and create more social problems. He said that the business community of restaurants and wedding halls should be taken on board to ensure implementation of SOPs and indoor dining/indoor functions should be allowed to save these businesses from further losses.
Amir Ali Ahmed, Chief Commissioner ICT and Chairman CDA thanked the ICCI President and delegation members for sharing useful proposals to save restaurants from more losses. He said that saving businesses from losses due to the impact of Covid-19 pandemic was a high priority of the government and ICT Administration would allow outdoor dining on sideways and footpaths of restaurants, however, dining in the parking areas would not be allowed.   He said the fines would not be imposed on outdoor dining on footpaths and sidewalks.